


Fictober Shorts: Run Away

by Lyrishadow



Series: Fictober 2020 Shorts [14]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27100489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrishadow/pseuds/Lyrishadow
Summary: Prompt 14: “You better leave now”Fandom: Mass EffectTitle: Run AwayPairing: no pair. Just  Toriah (Tor-eye-ah) Shepard.Rating: A (mentions of abuse, slavers, etc not pretty)Warnings/Tags: Batarians and domestic violence.
Series: Fictober 2020 Shorts [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977133





	Fictober Shorts: Run Away

“You better leave now,” Toriah muttered to herself stuffing the rest of her clothes into the small backpack. It was dark when she let herself out of the house, tossing her keys onto the mat inside the door, and making sure to take the money she had been hiding for months now. 

“You are just a waste of space, why don’t you go and kill yourself?”  
Sticks and stones might break my bones but...  
“No wonder your father died, just look at you, such a disappointment.”  
Why did he die? Why did he leave me here in this place?  
“It is all your fault, we were happy before.”  
I’m sorry, let me leave so you don’t have to deal with me.

Toriah sighed and kept moving, she had to be as far away from this house as she could. In the end, she felt, this was the only reasonable course of action - to remove the pain she had, and remove the pain others had inflicted.

She stopped in the deeper part of the wooded area on the edge of the town, frustrated that it was only ten minutes’ walk from home, hardly the distance she would have liked.  
It would have to do for the time being, as the sun was rising and she did not wish to be found, she and a friend had played in these woods as children and discovered that the roots of the trees often created small hidden caves.

With the sunrise coming in fast, she slept solidly. Finally resting after everything. Aware of the bruises, but also grateful because they reminded her she had left for a reason, that she should keep going... She nestled into a space between the roots of the tree and slept.

It was late evening when the noises woke her. At first, she couldn’t identify the source of the problem. Yet these were the kind of screams that made her press back into the darkest corner of the small cave.  
Then the smells hit her: charred meat smells, like an over-cooked barbeque; more screams. She covered her mouth when she realized she could see out of the cave she was in towards the town.  
We are under attack! Mindoir is under attack! It’s the Batarians!

Then she saw her best friend, she had to stuff her hand over her mouth to stop calling out that she should run. Her friend was a galaxy-class runner, she could beat the pants off anyone. 

Toriah saw the expression in her friend’s eyes and knew she couldn’t run any more than Toriah could move from where she was. Someone else did, and they were immediately hit by blaster and fire. The smell making Toriah feel like throwing up.

I can’t make noise. I have to stay hidden, they won’t find me.

Hours later, as they drove through the carnage, an open jeep full of Alliance soldiers grim-faced, and tight-lipped looking for survivors.  
Toriah had moved when she though the Batarians were gone, walking across the ground she was unaware that her feet were being cut by glass shards; her feet were cut and there was blood but she kept going. She found her friend, eyes still open in terror.  
Oh, gods, I failed, I should have done something...

“Sir!” One of the Alliance Marines called with relief “We have a survivor!”


End file.
